My Highway A-hole Experience with Prime Time Shuttles Los Angeles

You know this company. They are one of many airport livery services that specialize in transporting the casual or business traveler from their home or office to one of several Southern California airports, harbors, bus or train stations.. and back again. This particular company has the dark red vans with the white lettering stenciled on all sides that says in big block letters PRIME TIME.

I have personally used this particular airporter company for almost 20 years now, usually to and from LAX. Overall I have been happy with their service and promptness. Todays rant doesn't hinge on my customer experience with them however. Nope, today I was just another vehicle and another driver.

I had to run into the Torrance Fry's Electronics store to return a hard drive enclosure. I had bough an extra one for a project I was doing and discovered after I got back to work I didn't need it afterall.

As I walked across the always stiffeling Fry's lot returning to my vehicle at about 1:37 pm, I was about 100 ft from where I parked my vehicle. I looked up to see one of the Prime Time shuttles parking next to my driver side door. The driver of the very large red passenger van pulled into the stall rather quickly - which is what drew my attention to it in the first place. His driver side door opened just as a 'thud' was heardas the driver hopped out. A mere 2 seconds later my vehicle alarm went off. I started to walk quickly to my vehicle to see what kind of a damage I had taken. For my alarm to have gone off, it would of had to be a substantial hit.

The driver of the ran around to the back of his van and across it's rear to the Fry's entrance probably because the alarm was now howling. He was walking in a very hurried pace, almost running. I approached from the front of the van and scooted up to the space between our vehicles. I discovered that indeed he opened his driver side door into my vehicle's left rear quarter panel (I had backed into the parking spot). I immediately ran around the the rear of the van as well towards the driver and called out to him "PRIMETIME DRIVER!", but that caused him to hastened his pace as he dashed up the steps to the Fry's enterence and bolted in. This particular Fry's is a big place and it's packed with people. I had no clear description of the man other than he was about 5'-6" or so with black hair and was wearing a medium blue colored jacket with an even darker pair of slacks. I saw no reason to cause a scene, chase the guy down or search the store looking for him. He would probably just deny it was his van anyways if I did find him.

At this point I knew he wasn't going anywhere without his van and I had some time to kill, so I decided to wait for him to come out. Forty minutes had passed and no sign of him. At this point I needed to get back to work, so I made note of the Primetime Van number ( van 570 ) and it's CA license plate number ( CA license plate 7F27247 ). As I drove back to work, I called the 1-800-REDVANS number on the side of the van and talked to a gentleman named I believe Roger. He then transferred me to "the person who takes care of the driver complaints".

After a few rings it became obvious that the person in charge of driver complaints was either overwheled, or had just stepped out for lunch. It was now 45 minutes since the incident. I left a voice mail message and provided details about the incident, providing van number and license plate info. That was yeasterday. For not returning my phone message within 24 hours, Primetime Shuttles are Highway A-holes.

So far, I have heard absolutely nothing from the company aasking about more details or anything one would want to know. You would think that a company would want to find out the specific details of the event before they get handed a small claims summons. So because of their office not responding in a timely fashion, they might be expected to appear in Los Angeles Superior County Courts Department 232 for a date of appearance bewteen May 5th and 9th 2008.

I'll keep you posted.

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APR 04, 2008 - 4:25 PM PT

Up to now, I have not heard back from anyone at Prime Time Shuttles corporate offices, where I last left a message advising them of the incident. I called the number and extension as I did before and left another message essentially stating that if I did not hear back from them soon, I will move forward taking whatever steps are necessary to claim my damages from that day.

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MAY 29, 2008 - 11:52 AM PT

Due to a lack of response by Prime Time Shuttles over this incident, a small claims suit was filed last week. They were served the papers at their corporate offices on MAY 28. The court appearance date is JUN 27, 2008.

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JUNE 3, 2008 - 10:09 AM

Received letter from judge finding in my favor to the amount of $1000. Primetime Shuttles didn't even show for the court date. Now the process of collection begins.